Catastrophic Camp Fire finally contained

After a brief delay to let a downpour pass, volunteers resume their search for human remains at a mobile home park in Paradise on Friday. A team from Orange County in Southern California is among several teams conducting a second search of a mobile home park after the deadly Camp wildfire torched part of Butte County in Northern California. Task force leader Craig Covey, in blue jacket at center, says his team is doing a second search because there are outstanding reports of missing people whose last known address was at the mobile home park. (AP Photo/Kathleen Ronayne)(Photo: Kathleen Ronayne, AP)

The massive Camp Fire that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes in Butte County has been fully contained after burning for more than two weeks, authorities said Sunday.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the Camp fire had been surrounded by firefighters after several days of rain in the Paradise area.

The nation's deadliest wildfire in a century killed at least 85 people, and 249 are still on a list of those unaccounted for. The number of missing dropped in recent days as officials confirmed that more people were alive.

Crews continued sifting through ash and debris for human remains.

The fire began Nov. 8 in the parched Sierra Nevada foothills and quickly spread across 240 square miles (620 square kilometers), destroying most of Paradise in a day.
Nearly 19,000 buildings, most of them homes, are gone.

The firefight got a boost last week from the first significant winter storm to hit California. It dropped an estimated 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain over the burn area over a three-day period without causing significant mudslides, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley of the National Weather Service.

Steven McKnight, right, and Daniel Hansen saw through large pieces of sheet metal so they can be moved to allow cadaver dogs to search for signs of human remains at a mobile home park in Paradise, Calif. They said the mobile home park had already been hand-searched, so they were re-examining it with search dogs.(Photo: Kathleen Ronayne/AP)

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen plan to tour the Camp Fire area and meet with community leaders.

In Southern California, more residents returned to areas evacuated in a destructive fire as crews repaired power, telephone and gas utilities.

Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said they were in the last phase of repopulating Malibu and unincorporated areas of the county. At the height of the fire, 250,000 fled their homes.

Three people died, and 1,643 buildings, most of them homes, were destroyed, officials said.